Once a form has been created you can adjust its settings within the form builder, including the:
To access the form settings from the form builder, select the form name on the screen. In the example below, you would select Daily Diary. A colored box with a Form tab will outline the form and the form properties will be displayed in the sidebar.
Form properties
Form properties include the form name, categories, tags, instructions and purpose which may have been set when the form was initially created. You can also adjust the default date range of data shown for the form in reports (if applicable) and set the platform availability for the form.
Form names
Form names are visible in the user interface so it is helpful to users if forms are identified according to their purpose or intention. A form is initially named when it is created, as a required step in the process of creating a new form.
The form can be renamed from within the form builder using the form settings; however, this practice is discouraged. It is best practice to rename a form using the Edit name button for the form in the list of forms created using the event pages, profile pages, databases or related entity tools.
When a form is renamed, any other forms which contain references to that form by its name will automatically update and retain their connection to the field that’s been referenced. This applies to any embedded charts and reports, linked calculations or other means of referencing data from within the form you are renaming.
Form categories and tags
Categories and tags are used to categorize and sort forms within the builder interface (each tool capable of building forms can be sorted by name, category or tag) and in the user interface. Form categories are visible in the sidebar or when a user has selected the enter data tool.
Form categories have no functional relationship with categories created by a site administrator using the categories tool.
Availability
When setting up a form, you can choose which platforms the form should be available on. This setting can be useful if people access Smartabase using multiple platforms, such as Smartabase Online and the Athlete app, and you want to restrict the forms available to them on the app. This may be the case for forms that contain fields incompatible with the app or longer forms which are better suited to be viewed on Smartabase Online.
The All platforms option means that the form will be available on all Smartabase platforms, including Smartabase Online, Athlete app and Kiosk app.
Forms which are set to exclude Athlete app or exclude all mobile apps are only available on Smartabase Online.
Form advanced properties
The advanced properties tab allows you to customize your form. A full list of the advanced properties is available below. Some of the advanced properties that are always helpful to know about are:
- Plural name
- Enable group entry
- Event type
- Enable comments
- Show history
- Show last record
- Show tooltips (on sidebar / in calendar / in tables)
- Auto color
These are the advanced properties that are available for an entire event form. To access the form properties, select the event form name in the event form builder. From the form properties section, select the Advanced properties tab. From version 6.8 of Smartabase, the form properties for save behaviors can be found in the Save properties tab.
Form positioning
This property allows builders to manually drag and drop sections in order to position them on the form. The height and width of sections can be set in the section advanced properties. Be mindful of overlaps between sections and always check the results not only on preview mode but also on the actual application.
- Width: if the form positioning is set to Positioned, builders can specify the width of the form using this property. Usually pages are 800 pixels wide.
- Length: if the form positioning is set to Positioned, builders can specify the length of the form using this property. The usual length of forms varies depending on the number of fields in them, but usually they are around 400 to 1200 pixels long.
Plural name
This property allows the builder to specify the plural name of the form. The system by default adds an “s” at the end of the name, but, for example, Daily Availabilities would need to be specified here to avoid a misspelling (Daily Availabilitys).
Allow copy to clipboard
If set to Yes, this allows people using Smartabase Online to copy the data that has been entered into a record and paste it into a new record for the same form. This new record can be for the same person or a different one. People can also copy data from a locked record to the clipboard. When Allow copy to clipboard is enabled, three new buttons will appear at the top of the form during data entry:
- Copy to clipboard: allows people to paste the information stored in the clipboard multiple times. The data remains stored until a new record is copied or the browser window is refreshed or closed.
- Copy for next entry: this auto fills the next entry, but once it has auto filled the form the clipboard is emptied and it cannot be used again.
- Clear data: clears the data from the form.
When people add data to a form from the clipboard, they can edit the values as usual. If there's a table in the form, they'll also be able to edit and delete pasted table rows.
Enable group entry
If set to True, it allows the form to be filled for multiple athletes using the enter data for group tool. If set to False, the form will not appear on it.
Group entry tabs
This property allows you to display each section as a selectable tab in group entry mode.
Event type
This property allows the user to specify which type of event the form is. The different event types offer different functionality so this should be chosen carefully according to what the form is meant to do. The options are Event, Scheduled event and Appointment. If the event type is set to Scheduled event or Appointment, the following properties can also be set:
- Interval length: this property determines the length of intervals between scheduled events or appointments based on the time period of the related entity.
- Event length: this property sets the desired length of the event in minutes. This defaults to 60 minutes.
- Allow length override: if set to Yes, the length of the event can be overridden when entering data.
- Forward entry limit: this property determines how many days forward are shown in the mobile calendar and Enter appointment tool.
- Backward entry limit: this property determines how many days backward are shown in the mobile calendar and Enter appointment tool.
- Limit entries: if set to Yes, the number of entries for the form will be limited in a given period, depending on:
- Limit period: this property determines the period for which entries should be limited.
- Limit amount: this property determines the number of entries allowed in the given period.
- Show event name in calendar summary: if set to Yes, the event name will display in the calendar summary. Note: if set to No, but no form items are set to be calendar summary fields, then the event name will still be shown.
- Schedule calendar summary override: this property determines which field will be displayed in the calendar summary for this event.
Athlete field
This property determines how the system will treat Single athlete and Multiple athletes fields. If set to None, as the name suggests, nothing special will happen after selecting an athlete. If set to Show in calendar, the record will show on the selected athlete’s calendar but it won’t create a record for him/her. If set to Create event for athlete, it will do exactly that, essentially creating an alternative for group entry.
Enable related events
Related events are a workflow that allows to link events, the end result is similar to having an Embedded report but it has the functionality to pull data across the forms and it can restrict the entry mode of the linked forms (see Entry mode property for more details). For related events to work the form has to be saved first; Save and continue buttons are useful for this.
- Related event forms: with this property the user can select the forms that will be linked as related events.
- Expand related on sidebar: related events appear on the sidebar when you clicked on the form they are related to. If this property is set to Yes, the individual records of the related events will be visible as well.
- Related events position: with this property it is possible to choose if the related event section will be displayed above the Save and close button or under it.
- Related event selector: The buttons linking to the related events can be set up as a Body diagram as well. If set to Normal it will just show buttons. If set to to Body diagram (if possible) instead of a button some of the related events will be accessible through clicking on a body diagram (only if they were correctly set up for this, if not they will show as buttons). If set to Both the related events that are accessible via the body diagram will also have a button underneath it.
- Related event body parts: this property is the continuation of setting related events to be accessible through a body diagram type field. On the form the events are being linked to this would be left blank. Then the user would have to go to each of the individual forms being linked and select which body part will correspond to that form. For example, if an Ankle Assessment form is a related event of a form called Physiotherapy Session, the user would have to go to Ankle Assessment and set the Related event body part to Ankles. The result would be that if somebody clicks on the ankles in the related event body diagram in Physiotherapy Session the system will redirect them to the Ankle Assessment form.
Sidebar auto history
If set to Yes, when a user clicks on the form name on the sidebar the system will automatically go to the Performance history for that form.
Linked record pullthrough
If set to Yes, field values can be pulled through to new embedded events when the field name, type and options are exactly the same in both the embedded form and the form that it's embedded within. Linked record pullthrough must be set to Yes in the event form where the values originate, not the form that they will be pulled through to. Values will only be pulled through if a new record is created from the Embedded event field; they will not be pulled through if an existing record is linked.
Pulled through values are not updated if the values in the original form change; if this is required, consider using an Embedded event summary field instead.
In the screen recording below, Injured Area is reported with a body diagram field in the Treatment Notes form and the form is configured with Linked record pullthrough set to Yes. When a new Injury Record is created from the embedded event in the treatment note, the Injured Area value is pulled through to the corresponding Injured Area body diagram field in the Injury Record form.
Enable comments
This property turns on and off the comment box that appears at the bottom of the form (below the Save and close button) when reviewing a previously entered record. If comments have been saved and the setting is later disabled, the comments will be hidden; re-enabling comments will display the comments again. Comments entered here cannot be displayed in reports or dashboards. Comments can only be exported using the individual PDF form export option.
Enable deleting comments
This property determines if users will be able to delete previous comments made in the comment box mentioned above. Disabling this property does not restore previously deleted comments.
Print all
If related events are enabled, this property allows the user to decide if the related events will be included when saving a PDF of the form. If set to No, only the form will be saved as a PDF. If set to Yes, all the related events will be included.
Print page format
This property allows the user to choose the orientation of the page when saving a PDF of a record. The options are Portrait and Landscape.
Expand into calendar finish/start
This property allows the user to expand a record in the Calendar into its individual components. For example, a training session could be divided into Warm up, Drill 1, Drill 2, Cool Down, Recovery. Regularly this would show as one block called training session, but with Expand into calendar the user can specify a start and finish time for each component using Time fields in a table and show those components on the Calendar. For example, if a record was saved at 2pm and contains a table outlining different activities between 7 and 11am, the record will only exist on the Calendar between 7 and 11am.
Show event in calendar
This property allows the builder to show/hide events on the Schedule and Calendar. This will not affect any other aspect of the system (i.e. Performance history, Reports or sidebar). This property has the potential to declutter the calendar, making the system more user friendly.
Show event in iCal
This property has a similar functionality as the one directly above but this time it shows/hide the event from a iCal download or calendar subscription. This does not affect the Calendar in Smartabase.
iCal subject
This property allows the builder to control the name that the event will have in an iCal download or calendar subscription.
iCal location
This property allows the builder to control the location of the event in an iCal download or calendar subscription (i.e. where the event is taking place).
Show history
This property allows the user to show/hide the Performance history section at the bottom of the page during data entry (below the Save and close button). This has no effect on the performance history or reports tools, it only affects the history section at the bottom of the form during data entry.
History columns
This property limits how many columns will show on the Reports tool, Performance history tool and the history section at the bottom of the forms during data entry (only if Show history is set to Yes). This value overrides any other field selections for the report. For example, if the History columns value is set to five but you select nine fields to be displayed in a report, only the first five fields of your selection will be displayed.
Name column width
This property allows the user to specify how wide the name column should be in Reports and Performance history.
Show last record
If set to Yes, this property allows the user to show the data from the athlete’s previous record to the right of the data entry fields. If this would be beneficial or not should be decided on a case by case basis.
Show template
When Templates are enabled, it is possible to store information entered in a form and apply it to another entry later. The difference between this and the clipboard is that Templates are permanently stored on the system and people can have more than one saved Template per event form. Templates are not shared between people so they will only be viewable by their creator. Templates can be useful for example on strength and conditioning forms where the sessions are repeated frequently.
Show right sidebar
This advanced form property is obsolete and has no effect.
Show entered by
If set to Yes, the Performance history and Reports tools will include an Entered by column by default. Using the reports tool, it is possible to exclude or include this column manually as the report is created (effectively overriding this property). However, there is no way of changing this in the performance history.
Category icon
This property allows you to choose an icon to display next to the event form name when viewed using the Smartabase mobile apps and the favorite event feature for Smartabase Online. If left blank, a default category icon is used. Some of the icons may vary slightly between Smartabase Online and the mobile applications. The following category icons are available:
- Coaching
- Fitness
- Illness
- Injury
- Nutrition
- Physical
- Physiology
- Psychology
- Speed
- Strength
Compressed summary field
The compressed field functionality allows the user to create a summary of a set of fields. This property is aimed at improving the usability of the system because it hides all the fields that are part of the summary. Then, when the summary field is clicked, a little pop up box appears with all the fields that are being summarized. Once that pop up box is finished, it disappears and the event form only displays the summary field. For this functionality to work, the calculation field that contains the summary must be selected as the Compressed summary field. Each individual field that will be summarized has to be set up with the right field properties too (Compressed data entry set to True).
Default next cell
This property allows the user to select the direction tables will be filled (i.e. after a field is filled where should Smartabase go next). It can be set to go to the cell on the right, to the cell directly below or to just stay on the cell that was just filled, without moving automatically to another one.
Expand sidebar
This property can add functionality to the sidebar. If set to True, when a user clicks on a record a little menu will show up asking if they would like to open the form, print a PDF, or duplicate the form (only if duplication is enabled).
Attachments
This property allows users to attach files to the form. This is different from the File upload and Multiple file upload fields. In this case the attachment is not made against a field inside the form, it is made against the form itself. It is important to mention that anybody with access to the form will have access to the attachment as well.
- Always edit attachments: this property defines if users will be able to edit or delete attachments. If set to No, they will only be able to download it.
- Attachments are resources: this property was developed as a workaround for the security issue with attachments made against the form. If set to True, all attachments will be turn into resources as well, effectively limiting the access to them based on categories. If this property is changed once there is data on the form, all the attachments already in it will be automatically added to the Attachment sidebar category. When adding new attachments, the users can choose any category available to them.
Enable duplication
If set to True, the user will be able to duplicate the entry from the sidebar (only if Expand sidebar is enabled).
Date override
This property allows builders to specify a Date field within the form for a user to override the actual date of entry. For example, if a record is saved on 03/03/2019 but has a date override set to a Date field where the user selects 02/28/2019, the date for the record will be set as 02/28/2019. When the Date override property is used, the record date and time selector that usually appears above a form will not be shown to the user. By default, the event start time will be set to 12:00 and the event finish time will be set to 13:00.
Show tooltip in sidebar
If set to True, every time a user hovers over a record on the sidebar a tooltip will pop up showing a preview of the information on the record.
Show tooltip in calendar
If set to True, every time a user hovers over a record on the Calendar a tooltip will pop up showing a preview of the information on the record.
Show tooltip in tables
If set to True, every time a user hovers over a record on the Performance history or Reports tool a tooltip will pop up showing a preview of the information on the record.
Recalculation delay
This property allows the users to delay running the calculations on the form. This could be useful when there are too many calculations on the form and data entry is running a bit slow because the system keeps re-evaluating all calculations as new data is being entered. There are options that allow builders to set different delay durations. However, in most cases the results will be needed immediately.
Derive form by
Allows builders to create different versions of a form based on visibility settings. For example, a Musculoskeletal Evaluation form might have a field called Evaluation Type, with the options Full Evaluation and Basic Evaluation. If the form is set to be derived by Evaluation Type, Smartabase will essentially create two sub-forms for the Musculoskeletal Evaluation, one called Full Evaluation and the other called Basic Evaluation. The fields on those two sub-forms will be set based on the visibility settings that use the Evaluation Type field as a condition. The information on both sub-forms will be stored together, allowing reporting to include everything.
Entry mode
This property is relevant mainly to related events. If Entry mode is set to Linked entry only, new data will have to be entered through the form it is related to. For example, if a form called Medications is a related event of Medical Consult, it would only be possible to add a new Medication record if the users go through Medical Consult first.
Auto color
This property controls whether Performance standards are applied automatically during data entry.
Auto shorten
When fields are organized in columns and their names start with the same words, it is possible to change the way they are displayed so that only the component which is different appears. It does not change the field name itself so the full name should be used when referencing the field in calculations, reports or dashboards. Calculation field names are not affected by this property. The options available are None, Shorten and Full.
- If None is selected, the whole name will be displayed (for example, Test 1, Test 1 Comments, Test 1 Score).
- If Shorten is selected, only the difference between the names will be displayed (Test 1, Comments, Score).
- If Full is selected, only the first field name will be displayed (Test 1, [no name], [no name]).
Compare to
This property allows the builders to compare the values from the form against another form. This functionality only works for fields with exactly the same name across the two forms. The values will appear to the right of the data entry fields, similar to when Show last record is enabled. It is possible to individually select which fields will appear in the comparison with the field advanced property called Comparison. If this is set to No, the field will not appear in the comparisons.
Hide rows
Enabling this property will make the Show only important rows tick box available during data entry via Smartabase Online. Ticking the box will condense the form to only show fields which have been marked as important with importance selectors. Note that this setting only applies to fields that are arranged in columns; it does not hide rows within a table, even if importance indicators are configured there. For more information about fields configured as importance indicators, refer to the articles on Option Fields.
Due to the nature of this visibility setting, data loss will occur if data is entered into fields that are not marked as important and are hidden when the record is saved. This setting should be unticked before saving the record.
Rows in history
This property sets the amount of rows that will show by default on the Performance history.
Rows in reports
This property sets the amount of rows that will show by default on Reports.
Ranking method
Obsolete.
Send emails after time series processing
This property turns on and off the notification email a user receives after a time series file has been processed by the system.
Calendar saved colors
This property allows the user to specify the color of saved records on the Calendar. The color needs to be in Hex code.
Calendar planned colors
This property allows the user to specify the color of planned/draft records on the calendar. The color needs to be in Hex code.
Calendar auto color
This property allows builders to set the color of the event on the calendar based on the Performance standard for a specific field. E.g. A 40m sprint was extremely slow and the field is colored red, if this field is selected as the calendar auto color, the event on the calendar would look red as well. This takes precedence over other colors.
Calendar custom CSS
If a user has experience with CSS coding, lines of code can be added to the base CSS file creating a class for the record in the calendar and applying a particular formatting to it. Once the class is created, the name of it can be specified with this property, so the new formatting is applied whenever it shows up on the calendar.
Chart properties
This property allows you to select a chart property template to apply to Embedded charts within the form.
Calendar block details
This property allows users to include/exclude information from Training blocks (e.g. week 1 session1) on the Calendar.
Focus field on open
If this is set to Yes the first field will be selected automatically (ready to edit) when a new record is created and also when an old one is accessed.
Form entry width
This property allows builders to specify the width of the form during data entry, this is set in pixels. If left blank it defaults to 100%. Keep in mind that the actual fields are wider than 100px so be mindful of the number selected, especially if it is small.
Linked calculations
For most use cases this property should be set to No. This property should only be set to Yes if new entries of a form containing linked calculations will be backdated, meaning that the linked calculations have to identify the current state on the date the record is being created. There are performance implications for enabling this property.
Allow imports
Setting this property to No prevents users from using the Import data tool to import records for this form.
Key fields
This property allows you to select a field (or fields) that can be used to create a unique, composite key for the form and user. This key is not accessible in forms, reports or dashboards but may be useful when importing a large number of records into a form. After enabling or editing any selected Key fields, you will receive an email notification when the Key fields have been migrated. For more information about Key fields and importing duplicate records, refer to our article on importing data.
Disable logging of event data conflicts
Setting this property to Yes prevents event data conflicts from being logged for this event form. It is recommended that this setting is only enabled in event forms used for integrations.